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I had a very interesting conversation the other day with a male colleague of mine. He’s a very wonderful man and the same age as me, which is 62. So that puts us in the age of when things were much different at work than they are now.

Actually, not different just at work but just about every place we women exist in. What I mean by that is I have seen many changes over these 6 plus decades and we are definitely heading in the right direction. But we all know we have a long ways to go.

He thought it was very sad that all of these things were happening and it was making it unsafe for men in the workplace.

My response was dripping with sarcasm (that probably burned holes in the floor as it dripped off my teeth) “Oh how sad for you and all the men. It breaks my heart that you now feel a bit unsafe in the workplace. Must be terrible.”

This stopped him in his tracks for about half a second and then he continued to explain his point to me. I actually did understand what he was saying but the problem was, he was not understanding what I was saying.

And there we have it. I looked at him and asked “Have you ever told a man that he was acting inappropriately towards a woman?”

He sort of looked around and mumbled a few things while I sat back with my legs crossed and just looked at him with a bit of a smirk on my face. I couldn’t help it.

For that is the point. It’s not that we will get rid of men who act badly towards women. They will probably always exist. Always have and always will.

What we need are more men stepping up and putting those bad men in their place. You do that enough times and hopefully they will learn that they can’t get away with it anymore.

We don’t need any more talk about this. I’m sick and tired of having to hear this shit as it hits the fans. Yeah, I’m glad this is in the headlines and people are talking about it, but the question is, what are you willing to do about it?

I’ve survived, as many women have, endless times of being sexually harassed and assaulted. We women know all about this. I’m just sick and tired of good men looking at us with a blank stare and asking “What are you talking about?”

I’m sorry but they know damn well what we’re talking about. This is not something new to them and I think their objection is that they’re being held somewhat accountable now for the actions of others.

As well they should be.

Weinstein had a whole shitload of people that helped him with his abuse for decades. Believe it or not, it’s not so much his abuse and being a predator that pisses me off. It does, but it’s all of those people that helped him with it for so many years. He could have been stopped dead in his tracks if just one person had stood up to him. Okay maybe not one. Maybe it would have taken hundreds. I don’t know.

And maybe there were people that did and we haven’t heard about it. If so, I would like to hear from them and find out what happened.

Evil and badness exist simply because we let it.

So to all my male friends and colleagues that understand, I thank you.

Now you guys need to get the show on the road and get this shit to stop. We’re sick and tired of it.

It was an episode on Longmire and it made me cry and feel like crap. I cannot handle it when an animal feels bad, let alone gets hurt. I can’t even deal with an animal feeling sad. Even when I know the animal is rescued at the end of the video – only because it was posted that way and they said so – that the little creature was scared actually keeps me up at night.

I don’t want to know these things, even if it all turns out well. I. Don’t. Want. To. Know.

I only want to live in a world where everyone and everything is vegan, even me. I’ll never be a vegan, but I want to live in a world where I am. Where animals graze on grass and lions don’t kill zebra babies to feed their babies. Sometimes nature sucks and don’t tell me it’s beautiful. It’s not. Killer whales tearing apart a seal to keep from dying isn’t a world I want to live on but here I am.

I want to live in a world where a woman of my age still has value. I don’t, but I want that world. I want the world where someone of 80 has more value than me and I’m good with that.

I want to live in a world where I can write and type because my hands haven’t gone numb and made it almost impossible to post anything without hours of pain and frustration.

I don’t have all the answers but I have enough to know that there is a lot more right and beautiful about people and this planet than most will have you believe, so I like where I’m at and I admire my intelligence with the knowledge that I don’t fit in, never will, and my crushing loneliness is just the way it is.

And I’m good with that. Better that than chronic neck pain from nodding in agreement with people who don’t know their asses from a hole in the wall and have no idea there is a world outside their sense of self-importance and value.

I don’t know if anyone out there in the great cosmic universe cares, but that’s never stopped me from blogging. Ha! I thought I’d do a series of writing posts just to stay in touch with everyone and see what’s up. I’m not around much anymore as social media annoys the living shit out of me and I’m hustling daily to make the money to pay the bills.

I used to feel ashamed to say that, but now I don’t because you know what? Unless you’re extremely wealthy, you’re in the same boat as me. I’m currently up to my eyeballs in editing this beast of a book. I have wracked my brain trying to put it together and make it work, when it suddenly dawned on me – I’m trying to write something that should be broken down into smaller pieces. Like a series of smaller books.

God knows I love writing and I also hate it at times. This story prompted my Patreon site and got me the best patrons in the world. But when the day is done and the sun has set, knowing another day is just a few hours away, I realize (once again), that writing is fucking lonely. So much so that I have to lock myself away every night (and sometimes during the day) just to make some progress.

Then I found a wonderful invention – the library! Oh God, how could I have forgotten that? The library, where there are books everywhere you look and tons of places to sit quietly and read or write or play solitaire on your computer. So on the days when I don’t have to go to the office – most days – I grab my notes, pens, pencils, laptop, Kindle, phone and sneak away every afternoon and escape. It’s hard. It’s really hard for me to sit very long and concentrate. I can do it if I’m talking to someone, but it’s a whole different thing when I’m alone with my thoughts (too many of them), pinging around in my head.

I’ve taken to keeping a notebook with me AT ALL TIMES and also jotting down notes in my phone. I find the more that I do that, the more ideas I have. But this story is different because it’s a true story and as I’ve written it, so many other things in my life have popped up. Good things and some really bad things, which I don’t want to think about, let alone write about. But there they are, staring back up at me from the page.

Things that have made me flinch and sometimes cry. Things that have made me smile and pat myself on the back. Things that I wish had never happened and mistake that I’ve made that still make me ashamed and wonder “What in the actual fuck was I thinking?”

Yeah, those things. I’m at the final stage of tearing it apart and putting it all back together again. I’d rather have a root canal without any Novocain. OK, maybe a slight exaggeration but not by much.

I worry all the time that my writing sucks and I’ll never be good enough. I tell myself that I’m full of shit for thinking that, but the thought always lingers, always present if not buried. But it’s there.

To any writers out there, what do you do to push yourself through something you don’t want to do anymore or don’t want to put down of paper? I push myself through it, painful as it is.

I’m not a famous writer. I’m not well known. I go my own way as I see fit. There are a few things I’m “supposed to do” that I don’t do as a writer:

Attend writer groups.

Hang out with other writers.

Talk about my writing. How boring is that?

Get feedback. I’m not that interested in feedback. I just say I am to be polite.

Read all types of “writing ideas” and tips on how to write, what to write, or how to come up with inspiration. I went down that road and it fucked me up.

Outline and plan and plot the story. I just write the damn thing.

I don’t follow the “rules of writing” (there aren’t any on my planet) because they are nonsense. They annoy the shit out of me.

I don’t rewrite. I write and submit/publish my first draft. When I have tried to rewrite, the work never got done. I’ll scan it a few times, looking for typo’s or awkward sentences. That’s about it.

Try to learn how to write. Not possible. You learn by doing it and figuring it out yourself.

I started to write this story based on a very simple and quick thing I saw in the news. It was the London riots back in 2011. I was online a lot at that time – Google Plus, which has since been ruined by Google – and this was all over my stream for days.

I wondered what I would do if that started to happen here in my city. I figured I’d get a gun and sit on the porch and wait. Then I thought if I would protect anyone and that’s how Lena popped into my head.

Guns scare me, but I’m much more prone to protect someone else, so I’d probably do that if riots started happening here.

I believe that all inspiration comes from within and that all fiction has some degree of truth in it. Could be my truth, or your truth, or some truth from a drunk trying to bum money out of me.

Somewhere out there, Lena and Eli exist in some form. I know this to be true. That’s my truth and that’s all I need. I saw the two of them, sitting on a porch with guns, drinking beer and waiting for the assholes to come down the street and cause trouble.

It was as clear in my mind as much as this monitor is in front of me. I let them tell me their story. I listened, struggled, and made it much more complicated than it ever needed to be.

Once I knocked off my nonsense, I got to work and finished the story that I had started years before.

That’s my new thing – finishing what I started and getting it out there and hope for the best.

To me, this story is about two women who had nothing in common, each with their own demons, who somehow found a way to tame them together.

The story of two women who can’t be more dissimilar and yet form a friendship that defies all the odds until the day death drove them apart.

I capped it out at 15,000 words, but it could easily be longer. Maybe I’ll do that someday.

But for now, I want people to read it and take something from it. I write for me, first, and then for anyone who wants to read it. I write the stories I want to read and put it out into the cosmic universe and go onto the next one.

I hope you’ll check it out and never give me your feedback. Seriously. Unless you like it. You can tell me that.

Here’s the link for my site. $2.00 a month is all. Skip a cup of coffee this month and toss it over to me. You’ll not regret it.

I had the pleasure of talking with a young man yesterday. He’s a friend of a friend and came into the office. Let’s call him Gary, OK?

Gary has been in the United States for 9 years. Prior to immigrating here, he was an attorney in his home land. He has no intention of being an attorney here but is still passionate about human rights.

He told me a story of working for someone here in the US. The man underpaid his employees and was a criminal. Gary, very intelligent and fluent in English, caught-on very quickly what illegal things this man was doing and that he was taking advantage of his employees, many of whom didn’t understand English and did not know their rights.

Gary tried, several times, to get the man to change his ways, but he refused. Gary watched as the employees worked hard yet didn’t know they weren’t even being paid minimum wage.

Gary played a little dumb (smart!) and told the man he would sue. The man laughed at him and blew him off.

Gary then started a class action suit against him. He gathered up all the employees, made sure they understood, took care of them and sued.

And they won. $2,000,000.00 of which Gary took very little from.

For you see, like me, he doesn’t give a crap about money. He just wants people to do well.

I asked him “As someone who has come from another country, what do you think about the US?”

With no hesitation, he said “You know why this is the greatest country in the world? Because we can all come here, be protected, and live our lives. You know there are so many people who want to kill all of you? You know that most of us don’t and that we love you, your government and your Constitution and will die to protect it? Each and every one of us are proud to be an American.”

I choked up, got up and hugged him. I thanked him for being here, for caring about people. He hugged me back.

He talked about our history and I was beyond impressed.

“You guys are rebels and you flipped off those that sought to control you, tell you what to think, what to believe, and how to live. You told them to go to hell, broke all the rules and opened your hearts to the foundation and basis of your country – freedom of religion and that’s why we’re here.”

Remember that our system works. It may not be perfect, but it works.

You just need to be more intelligent on how to use it.

When you rant, rave, share degrading meme’s and pictures of the President of the United States, YOU HURT YOUR CAUSE! You are doing so much more damage and personally, I’m sick of your shit.

I don’t give a flying fuck what you think because you are being an out-of-control idiot and will never get your message across. Those of us who you might have had a conversation with and might have gotten some help, you are immediately muted and written off as stupid.

Here’s some advice from someone who has had 40 years of success in getting people to act:

Speak intelligently and talk to each person as if they are important, because they are.

SIMPLY state ONE objection and be very specific in that ONE objection.

Answer people’s questions AND LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY.

Give them ONE THING to do and help them do that.

Rinse and repeat.

Carry on and get your emotions under control. You’re hurting your cause when you react.

And how about my favorite, Michael Vick? Do I really need to rehash that?

Apparently I do. Here, take a look at one of his dogs:

Not only did he fight dogs, he took his 2 family dogs (that his kids adored) and threw them into the fighting pit and laughed as they were torn apart. He has admitted that he got off on it, loved the horror that he created, and never would have stopped if he hadn’t been caught. Yes, it’s true. Go check out YouTube, but I warn you..it’s beyond disturbing.

He never served one minute of time for what he did to the dogs. He’s never paid one cent to the thousands of people who took his dogs in, rehabilitated them and gave them homes. By the way, there’s not been one incident of aggression in any of the dogs. They are all doing well and are a beautiful testament to the kindness and loyalty of the breed.

Yet one man decides to not stand for the anthem and everyone loses their shit?

OK, then stop supporting the NFL. Stop watching their games and buying their merchandise. You may not like what Colin is doing, but it’s not illegal (see above) and he is a man of color, so all you white people need to stand down.

I don’t care if someone stands during the anthem or not. I care about the guy down the street that is molesting kids or the woman who is being beaten by her husband or the child that goes to bed hungry or the dog fights that I am sure are in my neighborhood.

Save your outage and actions for shit that matters.

Not for some athlete that hasn’t harmed you, his family, friends or co-workers.

She sat in the dark at the kitchen table. Everyone was asleep. It had been a long day, but she wasn’t sleepy. She was never sleepy yet always tired. Tired for as far back as she could remember. She didn’t sleep so much as pass out for a few hours every couple of days. The meth kept her awake and the Valium helped her to relax in the mid-morning when business slowed down as the men went to work or back to their homes.

But today, she was clean. Today she only drank coffee and soda. She would resume her habits tomorrow, but for tonight, she needed to be alert and ignore the overwhelming craving to numb her thoughts, her pain, and the endless images of nameless men who bought her for the hour or two that day. The images faded as long as she kept moving. She knew if she ever stopped moving, she would die.

She looked at the lit candle on top of the cupcake that she placed in the middle of the table. She purchased 6 cupcakes from the store the day before, but she only needed one, so she tossed the others in the garbage as she left the store. She wrapped the remaining one in a napkin and carefully put it in her purse. She was careful not to crush it as she walked home. She hid it in the back of the top shelf of the pantry behind a canister of flour. No one had ever touched the flour or even the top shelf in the 3 years she had been living in the house, so she was certain it was safe.

After everyone was asleep, she had gotten up and retrieved the cupcake and placed the candle on top of it. She lit it in the dark and sat back and quietly cried.

She never got to meet the child she had lost, but she knew it had been a girl.

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